The UK is a world leader in VFX, but that position is under threat

The UK's position as a world leader in the art of visual effects
is under threat because of a severe skills shortage and
insufficient government support, according to industry leaders.

A combination of fortune and persistance over the past two
decades has made London one of the most important places in the
world for post-production work. The companies based in the capital
-- particularly in and around Soho -- make the big-budget effects
for many of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters, like
Inception, The Dark Knight trilogy, and
the Harry Potter series. Up to half the budget
of a big film can be allocated for special effects, which means
billions of pounds coming into the British economy from
international productions.

However, a combined threate of poorly-trained students and
proactive government policies in other countries could scupper this
quiet success story.

Cinesite, one of the more
prominent VFX companies in London, has since 2009 offered an internship programme
for students who have graduated (or are about to graduate) with
degrees in the arts, or programming, with the hope of identifying
new talent. On the day that Wired.co.uk visits Cinesite -- to see
one of the sessions where hopeful candidates can see examples of
winning work and ask questions of Cinesite's experience staff -- a
showreel breaks down the effects used on John Carter. It's
one of many modern films where filming primarily takes places in
front of a green screen, and the effects are added later in
post-production.

The students ask questions at the end, but very few of the
accents are British. Spanish, French, Russian, and South African,
yes; Yorkshire, Cornish, Liverpudlian, Northern Irish, no. While
the UK's reputation for producing quality VFX is justified, its
ability to produce the students who can work at these companies is
lacking. Internships for kids leaving school at 16 are rarer than
they used to be, and the education system does not offer
specialisation in the kinds of skills that the VFX industry
craves.

Antony Hunt, Cinesite's managing director, told Wired.co.uk that
education was the key issue here: "Visual effects work really
requires a mixed bag of skills, and international employees bring
something fresh and new. I think it needs action. I get frustrated,
sitting on so many panels and hearing proposals, and two years down
the line nothing's changed. We've spent millions on
infrastructure over the past ten years to build up this industry,
but in schools, some kids don't even learn on a laptop."

Lack of recognition
When Wired.co.uk went to a panel discussion in the run up to the UK's first VFX festival
in September, the education drum was banged repeatedly -- there's a
palpable sense within the industry that there isn't enough
recognition among students that there's this massive, multi-billion
pound industry desperate for new talent. If they are aware, they
graduate with the "wrong" degrees, or degrees that lack the
specialisation required for complex jobs.

Garreth Gaydon works as a recruiter for Escape Studios, an academy
for computer generated effects in Shepherd's Bush. Escape is one of
the few formal routes for young students wishing to move into the
VFX industry, offering courses for people to turn their generic
knowledge into more specialised abilities.

He says: "This is one of the fastest growing industries in the
UK. There was hardly anything here ten years ago, but now we do
work on films like Avatar and Prometheus.
It's grown rapidly, but people don't know it exists. People might
see it at university, but the courst content is generic, and they
don't teach the right skills. Very few students graduate and
can go straight in and work at a studio. A lot of it's just too
specialised."

Comments

Interesting piece. As someone who works in this industry I welcome government recognition, investment and help. It seems an odd one when the government extend tax breaks then thwart development such as the Pinewood extension - which would create more jobs, bring in money for building the economy etc and in this case possibly bringing in more UK VFX work.

I'd also argue that one problem isn't just education, it's work. There's a lot about not enough home grown talent, but it's tough to get into, lots of competition and not enough facilities offer sufficient junior work &amp; training to develop skills - regardless of whether they've been to University or not. Having an approach like this motivates the workforce and builds them up to learn the company's pipeline and workflow and offers progression. Besides, currently there seems to be few job vacancies - at least for feature film VFX work. On flip side as it tends to fluctuate this could change fairly quickly when contracts/bids are won. True though regarding the little amount of people aware of the industry and the amount of work that goes into it and money that in generated for the economy.

Lounge Lizard

Oct 23rd 2012

30% tax rebates have more to do with London's VFX leadership than all the fortune and persistence in the world

Will

Oct 23rd 2012

Not all is gold! The industry don't want student! They need professional but you can't be a professional if you can work on the industry!London is very expensive, please pay to the student and students don't work for free!

Xeic M

Oct 23rd 2012

An interesting article, but it glosses over a major issue in VFX - retention. Salaries and working conditions have taken a nose-dive in the last few years, (over and above the effects of the credit crisis), and experienced artists are leaving the industry because companies treat them so poorly. Many companies are actually downsizing - not because the work isn't there - but because they can force the remaining artists to pick up the slack and work overtime for nothing. The skills vacuum is self-created by an industry that survives to a large degree through worker exploitation, and whilst young graduates and new starters might be willing to put up with it to get a foot in the door, by the time you have real experience, you're burnt out.

Tristan

Oct 23rd 2012

UK and Canada government should use the tax dollar on some indie/incubation film maker. Help them start up and joint with online content publishing tech local companies to make their way out. That way you got much more diversified and local content being made every year with fresh faces and original contents plus extremely low cost compared to shoot then fix in post production as we have right now.

Race to the bottom is useless, hurts everyone's pocket and in the end jobs goes to cheaper area when the time comes, and yet we will still watching boring sequels and reboots.

Ren

Oct 23rd 2012

I hate to say this, but I have little sympathy these days. The industry leaders have brought this reign of bad luck upon themselves.

When I was in the business there were new facilities popping up all over the place like rabbits seemingly every week. Now the industry is facing massive number of redundancies, takeovers or any combination thereof. I see today's VFX industry as stable as a jelly on a plate travelling at 500mph.. Too many people are curtailing to the studios and too many people thinking they can run a VFX business. The result - it seems to me that there are too many people working in the industry and it's now overstaffed.

Not only are the facilities bidding more aggressively to attract work (at the cost of benefits to the employee), but the larger film studios - who *could* afford to take work wherever it be regardless of whatever tax incentives exist - are beginning to betray their own country's VFX industry to go to wherever they can maximise their profit margins. That may be the UK, somewhere else in Europe, Asia - wherever. They don't care. They just want their VFX on a plate yesterday. These film studios do not give a flying monkeys - they just want it done in time and on (an unrealistic) budget.

This to me, however, is stabbing one's industry fellows in the back. Engineers - even back in my time - were necessary "evils" (I quote from one of my former managers). I dread to think what employers thought of artists.

The situation is, as they, the equivalent of a millionaire shopping at Poundland or only ever shopping at DFS (who never seem to not have a sale). Perhaps somebody ought to set-up vfxsupermarket.com - a price comparison website for filmmakers and studios wanting VFX. I may or may not be joking.

Roll on the VFX union which I hope will help ensure that everybody working in VFX gets equal treatment and to ensure a reasonable level of stability to those that continue to work within it.

Martyn Drake

Oct 24th 2012

In reply to Martyn Drake

I totally agree with you. Too many unrealistic time scales &amp; budgets. Poor treatment of artists and producers that just say yes and bend over backwards just to get the work &amp; contacts. Although they're needed or else no work at all. Anyway, while I sincerely hope this situation betters and the industry is sustained, working conditions improved and it continues to grow, there is one argument against. Would the UK VFX industry survive or still be a big player if a Union or let's say more working realism/fairness comes into play? I don't know. I'd like to think so but probably not.

Lounge Lizard

Oct 24th 2012

There are quite a few people I know that have left the mainstream VFX industry to concentrate on other creative endeavours thanks to the the way things are being run at the moment.

Many people I have worked with have up sticks and moved from country to country to be able to try and get a relatively stable job in VFX - whether that be permanent or freelance. I've seen fellow Brits migrate to the US, Canada, or New Zealand. US folk migrate to Canada or the UK. We've had a number of highly talented New Zealanders come to the UK (and then gone back again). And the mass migration of European VFX artists moving between the different EU states. I've even worked with people from the US working in the UK who have worked for Indian VFX companies.

You go where the jobs are in this industry. But thinking about the logistics involved in moving between countries and companies is horrendous. I doubt few get financial assistance for doing so, and even when they do, it's not much. Add to that the problem of benefits (healthcare, pensions, etc.) and yourself a bloody nightmare.

Would I do it? No. I had considered New Zealand at one point, but the logistics and leaving family behind would have been terrible. No guarantees of long term success and you're bound to whatever conditions are put on the associated visa.

Given that, how can anybody say that Britain is the leader in VFX? No one country is "the leader" or any better than the other - given the large migrant workforce that the industry has forced upon itself, it all comes down to tax incentives and bidding.

Even with training from excellent sources such as Escape Studios - it's still geographically possible that graduates will migrate to other countries to get work. None of the Soho-based facilities are going to guarantee jobs straight out of graduation (or even if you get a job, how long you'd stay). None.

It's not that I want to be a grumpy young curmudgeon, but I really wondered how things were going to last judging on what went on. We are at a point where loyalty in VFX is a thing of a past. It's a dog eat dog world and it's high time something be done about it. And that has to start at the film studios who are doing all the commissioning.

Martyn Drake

Oct 24th 2012

VFX companies complaining about the lack of skills need to make more effort themselves to connect with universities and colleges. It's as if they expect to be given great skilled graduates without putting any investment into education from their business end. There's no real work experience offered or apprenticeships (well not when I was studying) unless your dad was a producer. Because it takes money and investment to train people up they refuse to do it, but in turn that makes them suffer from a skills shortage. They are being penny wise but pound stupid. I guess being able to tap into talent already properly trained up abroad enables them to make up for the shortage.

George

Oct 24th 2012

I started off as a runner in a post production company in soho straight after uni. please tell me how you are to live on £12k a year in london? unless u live with your parents it's imposible. I had the skills to move up in the industry but the companies(i called almost 50 of them) didn't want to invest in me.This was in 2008 when the recession hit. I ended up doing flash instead which i regret but that was paying well at the time.wish i could get back in the industry..

pete

Oct 24th 2012

In reply to pete

This is part of the problem. I was in a similar situation to you a year ago. Fortunately I could afford it by living with family. But VFX companies need to accept some responsibility and invest for their desire to have "home grown talent." Additionally, it's annoying to hear talk of the educational system not doing enough in offering the correct skills. Where there is some truth in that, people who are creative and/or have a passion for film/tv etc with or without a University degree can still develop the skills to work in VFX. I also think that the lack of awareness of the industry is more of an issue than the necessary skills.Generally most people have to start as a runner regardless of a University degree or not. I don't have a degree, but after being very lucky in getting my first artist job (post runner), I've found it very difficult since. I work in post production but can't get back in VFX as showreels are a necessity and I don't have all my material and struggle to get any new shots in and the jobs a few and far between. VFX houses should invest in people in order to get a strong, committed and talented work force. It benefits them as well as the national economy.

Lounge Lizard

Oct 24th 2012

In reply to Lounge Lizard

Lounge Lizard and Pete are very much correct. I moved to London to be a Runner after receiving a BA 1st Hons in Animation Design. I lasted 8 months at a major Soho studio. They told me I would be made a matchmover if a job was open, but nothing was open. However, 1-2 months later they hired a boatload of people who had no idea about matchmoving and I was there working as a Runner when the group was ushered in for their 1st lesson. Most of the Runners could matchmove in university and had been training after long, strenuous hours in matchmove to the standard of the company. They could have been used, but the heads of matchmove (an entry level job students can do from 2nd year...) had a stigma against hiring from the Runners. I hear "bad training" all the time, but that is just an excuse. The fact is they don't use their heads. They need managers and business-minded people to *manage* hires, not heads of a unit already busy on a production. The same person in question didn't even have time to look at my training shots and looked bad when it came time for my review. It was like they tried to say everything they could to avoid blame when they shouldn't even have been defensive, since they should not have even been in charge of training. Runners don't get training that artists get. They also don't get a trainer. In the facility I was in, I had to pester an artist to me a "mentor" and they didn't do anything, because they didn't have time being that artists work long, hard hours to deadline! There was a trainer with time but wasn't training the Runners for some reason. We had to learn from an intranet web page on 98% of the instructions, some of the content was outmoded and useless. Without pestering artists and hoping for help from someone with time and sympathy, you would never find out what essentials were missing or what the point was of the lesson. It was like a maze to keep the mice from learning the trade in house productively.Personally, it looked to me like they never wanted to hire Runners as artists. If you kiss a lot of ass someone might like you, but I'm not very servile and I lost out. I know so many Runners who got the chance to move into 2D, but were criticised behind their backs and were the 1st to get the axe when the studio mismanaged their finances. Frankly, it is easy to mismanage your finances when you are bidding for projects which aren't guaranteed. I'm surprised anyone invests in VFX at all. Over in Hollywood, they sincerely do not care what the bidding system has done to the livelihoods of many. The very artists who put butts in seats. So yes, everyone should unionize. Besides, any company practicising unethical hiring practices should be banned from working in 1st world countries. Push the crap companies away so decent ones can start up or revolutionise the current system in London, making European films. In London, there is a curious amount of American work being done and practically no European work. Ask them why. Pixomondo is smart at least, they have studios in Germany. At least someone is using their heads.

Jessica

Jan 11th 2013

There are literally thousands of graduates every year that apply. Dneg stated in 2011 that 4k grads apply every year, plus the ones from the years prior. It's not a skills shortage, it's a job shortage. I was a Runner at Dneg and there were no Matchmove (entry level 3D) jobs going. I think 2 people I know have gone into Matchmove there in the last year at entry level after undergoing full Dneg training for a year at least each.As far as I can see, within the U.K., Framestore is hiring juniors.The "skills shortage" the "industry leaders" are talking about is the ability to code, which isn't relevant in most VFX work. My friend at Dneg told me not a single artist in the room with him could code. It's not a skills shortage, it's an infrastructure shortage. The only films that the U.K. works on are U.S. and U.K. ones. It's not in Europe's economic interest to bring work to the U.K., just to take it away. Euros don't convert flatteringly into Pounds Sterling, it's in their best interest to make films in Germany, rather.Unless I'm mistaken, all London VFX studios sent their junior work to Singapore, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Vancouver, where artists are paid less than a McDonald's worker. There are juniors working in the U.K. that earn about the same as a McDonald's worker. No, really, there are. I interviewed for one of these jobs!The fact is the skills are here, the junior hires are ready to work-there just isn't much work available. I personally know grads who have been trying to get a job with VFX companies for years. There is a stigma against hiring and training juniors, particularly in 3D pipeline work, which I've witnessed in London. The studios prefer the Singapore matchmovers, because the work can be done overnight and when they come in in the morning it is all ready. It is also much cheaper. They don't usually take U.K. folks at their Singapore offices, but it happens when they need people with experience out there.The overseas branches tend to hire locally as a preference and one particular Head of Global Recruitment for a major VFX studio in London stated very recently they only hire under-30's to send to Vancouver. I'm not sure why that is, possibly it is something to do with cheaper Visas. Who knows.The talent is in the U.K., the jobs aren't, though. I think Framestore is the only major studio that consistently hires junior artists in the U.K. on a regular basis and they have good relationships with leading universities.Also, artists live in fear of losing their job or not being taken on for future contracts if they rock the boat, so they work overtime without the same pay any other employee within the U.K. would earn. At crunch time, artists will work 24-7. People get sick, but can't afford to stay home to get well due to deadlines. They also won't be seeing any of those mandatory employee pensions the U.K. has instituted by law, because they are mere contractors. Studios don't hire them as permanent staff and they are often treated as temps. Some studios will keep certain people on as much as possible from one film/commercial/television project to the next if they stand out and do impressive work. In other words, the setup is no good for the artist and it is difficult to have a family. I was fortunate to have met one pregnant artist who had a child while working on a film. She was mid-senior level though and a veteran at the company she worked at. I have no idea if she was kept on for the next project or if she took a hiatus.Bottom line, the U.K. needs more work and the studios need a new model that favors their artists. They are chained specifically to the film groups in Hollywood and do anything to please them, since they bring in the work-at the artist's expense.

Jessica Lohse

Oct 25th 2012

I'm very suspicious of any attempt to change higher education into software training. People, at the age of 19, 20, shouldn't be forced to specialise that much.

The trouble is - a lot of the 'traditional' tasks such as rotoscoping, matchmoving or general paint work that previously provided a route into the more challenging work are now being outsourced by the big VFX companies to wherever in the world has nice low labour rates.

If companies do that, they really can't complain of a lack of trained VFX artists - they brought it on themselves!

kura okami

Oct 26th 2012

Britain produces a great deal of vfx talent and often from general, non-specialised colleges courses, augmented with plenty of self training and personal research and development.

The problem is with UK studios. They treat staff appalingly, cut costs to the bone in order to boost management bonuses by laying off skilled workers at a whim, never allowing career develoment and sharing of company success. They then lobby government tax breaks, training subsidies etc to prop up their shaky business models. They take en-masse short term international staff on revolving door hire-and-fire basis not because of skill shortages but for cynical cost cutting, essentially using skilled workers as 'office temps' with a partnership of easy visas from immigration services, or taking other EU citizens over on the promise of carreer jobs when they have no intention of including those folk for more then a few months to get over the latest 'tax payer' subsidised projects. Want to verify this? Just look at the crew credit lists for each project they complete, a revolving door of ever changing names, never retained, cast on and off at will. There are british staff in studios all over the world, often in successful positions, who leave to go to the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, because they get sick and tired of this UK studio approach. Its the only way for them to continue working in the industry and have stable work and a viable lifestyle. Management teams in UK studios make it impossible to live a normal life. Nothing to do with training and tax subsidies, thats just an exuse to put more money into their own pockets.

The science and engineering industries in the UK have a history of talent leaving for nations where their skills and rewards are better respected, like Germany, France, Canada, US. Same thing. UK is only interested in pandering and rewarding the banking industry. So to those UK studio bosses rattling the tax payer beggining bowl, here's a challenge for you ; put up or shut up! Otherwise, put that valuable money into better areas like alternative energy research, next generation hydrogen and electric vehicles, biomedical, etc, something that produces big patents and export revenues and benefits all society in a massive way, non just a few lobbyists with sharp elbows and loud voices who will not share their spoils with a fully included staff.

james erwin

Oct 26th 2012

Previous comment confirmed.

There are excellent british vfx workers across the world who mostly choose to leave because of the 'victorian workhouse' approach to greedy studio bosses in London.

STOP POURING TAX MONEY INTO THE POCKETS OF A FEW CYNICAL COMPANY OWNERS.

That money would be better spent elsewhere. As long as these lobbyists get training, infrastructure and producer tax transfers and credits, with easy, short-term access to immigration visas that aren't there for skills shortages, just to allow skilled international workers a 'working holiday' for a few months, in return for a revolving door of 'office temps', the nation will be misallocating yet more finance. All it is doing is personally enriching a small number of insiders and will not help the economy.

mcaulken

Oct 27th 2012

to the author of this article: for a lot more on this topic please contact me privately, you have no email address to reach you on this website.

a vfx artist

Oct 31st 2012

In reply to a vfx artist

a vfx artist,would be great if you could post your info in these comments or post online somewhere so we can all read. thanks!

interested

Nov 1st 2012

I am a graduate and this is really scareing me. I am haveing trouble finding my way into the industry its been 4-5 months since i left Uni and I am really starting to get pissed off at how difficult it is to get in. You seem to have to make the right friends with the right people and I cant help but feel like I have just wasted my time with a BA animation degree. i am not hearing of many people getting into the industry. I have only just started to get respnses back from small companies that seem to like my reel but then they just put me on a list for when something just "may" come up.

I am still trying to keep my training up and even finding a normal job seems pretty rubbish at the moment. I got some small amount of work experience. But I am now asking a question "is my degree even worth the paper its written on". I feel like im stuck with a degree that I may never be able to use and I really dont know what the heck else im going to do with my life at this point. I cant go back to uni. Not with those bloody fees.I feel like I am utterly bloody trapped.